


Orange Colored Sky

by SuperMutantMeatShield



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Diamond City stories, F/M, Family Fluff, Humor, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 06:44:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8317846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperMutantMeatShield/pseuds/SuperMutantMeatShield
Summary: It's 2290. The threat of the Institute is no more and two of the key players in its destruction have found themselves facing a new challenge: parenthood. This a one-shot that follows Nate and Piper one morning as they continue to adjust to their new lives...       “Ms. Wright, with the great green jewel of the Commonwealth, Diamond City, gone full on anarchy with no successor to Mayor McDonough or official rule over a twenty month period, what the hell is the leading voice of integrity and justice going to do about it?” Nate joked.  	Piper looked to her son, who seemed to be paying no attention to the lovely sunrise through the new gap in the wall but whom was nonetheless adorably tugging at his father's unruly beard.“I think that this was a good idea, Blue. We can worry about that later.”





	

It was another bitter Spring morning in Diamond City as Piper Wright began to stir from her dreamless sleep to find that she was alone in her equally cold bed. She could have just assumed that her partner had gotten up to answer nature's call moments before she awoke, and eased back into unconsciousness for a few more hours, but she'd accidentally pulled the comforter up too high so that the cold nipped at her toes. She waited, wide awake, for Nate to return to bed. After a few minutes of tossing around and waiting, the ever impatient Piper gave up. She pushed herself up on her elbows, squinting in the darkness of the bedroom. Rolling out of bed she stepped carefully over Dogmeat, who seemed to be getting more sleep than anyone living in Home Plate these days. She padded to the dresser and pulled one of Nate's hooded sweaters over her head, grabbed a light blanket to keep warm, and decided to go on a walk through their home.

It was pretty obvious to the reporter that she would rule out the bathroom and the kitchen in the search for Nate. She already had another good idea of where he was. A little over a year ago, the pair couldn't keep their relationship a secret any longer when Piper got pregnant. The prospect of getting married and starting a family, even after the destruction of the Institute, hadn't quite occurred to the couple as they were always too wrapped up in their work and they were already too busy raising Nat, Piper's little sister, and their other “baby”, Dogmeat, to worry about what came next in their relationship. That's why the sickness and fatigue that overwhelmed Piper in the early stages of her pregnancy was so troubling to Nate. Namely, the one-time vault dweller turned Commonwealth detective was terrified that his partner had developed some kind of advanced form of radiation sickness while they were out working on a case in Far Harbour. The reality was that the pair was always prepared for the occasional radstorm and the Fog didn't prove to be as menacing as they had initially thought-- Piper was the first to suspect that her illness probably had more to do with a few drunken nights at The Last Plank that had lead to some messy passion and a broken bed. It wasn't until the couple were making a special visit to Vault 81, where they were dropping off a stack of Grognak and Untouchables comics for Austin Engill, that Piper decided to also visit Dr. Jacob Forsythe and Curie in the vault's clinic. After all, Forsythe had owed the pair for getting to the bottom of the vault's grim purpose and for saving Austin's life. All it took was for Piper to describe a few of her symptoms and a bit of poking and prodding before Curie came to the conclusion, confirming Piper's suspicions, that the reporter was indeed several weeks pregnant. Forsythe, Curie, and Rachel took good care of Piper while she underwent tests and examinations. She made an effort to visit the vault once a month, sometimes twice, for check-ups until she had to deliver. Nate, while distant at first, was present for Piper but, thankfully, eventually warmed to the idea of a second chance at fatherhood. He became a devoted father to their son and had been nothing but one ever since.

That is why, in her search, Piper decided to check Miles' room first. In the dim of the nursery, Piper found Nate seated in the rocking chair with Miles on his chest. Piper beamed and wrapped the throw blanket tightly around her at the sight of her two boys fast asleep. In fact, this had become quite a regular sight for Piper: Nate had a terrible time falling and staying asleep these days and it wasn't even due to Miles! Well, it was... but the new parents had found that Miles wasn't the kind of baby that woke up screaming and crying in the middle of the night for no reason. The boy provided his father with some much needed calm after a rocky three year period in Nate's life. But Piper understood that Nate's anxiety and inability to sleep stemmed from his old life with Shaun, Nora, and the great, ever-present white elephant in the room: “the day the bombs fell.” In her twenty-six years spent living in this, occasional, irradiated shithole of a world, orphaned and having to juggle raising her sister from infancy to now, acting as chief editor, author, and publisher of a successful newspaper all by herself (the latter, with Nat's help of course), meeting Nate under the most devastating circumstances, travelling the Wastes with Nate and having to face everything from raiders, to deathclaws, to the Brotherhood, to the freaking Institute together, in addition to helping countless others face these horrors, falling hopelessly in love with Nate, a widower, who was seven (plus two hundred-something) years older than her, starting a family with Nate beginning with little Miles... despite all of this, Piper felt an unsettling calm fall over her life as well. A calm that rivalled the storm that seemed to be swirling in her Blue's skull. Ever the idealist, Piper was positive that her and Blue could face anything and anyone as long as they were together. Nothing was going to happen to her family and she would die protecting them, though, she wondered if Nora had once felt the same.

Piper shook off that last thought and moved over to Nate's side: his head lolling on his shoulder, almost gently on top of Miles' own. She pulled the blanket off her back and draped it over her shirtless partner and son as carefully as possible. _How is Blue not shivering like a fully-functional Nuka-Cola machine?_ After pecking Nate on the side of his bristly head, Piper grabbed the stray step stool in the corner of the room and as she was moving back to them, Nate perked up. “Hey, darlin'.” 

The young mother smirked bashfully as he straightened in the chair, still clutching onto Miles. “Hey, most handsome guy in the whole wide world...” Piper whispered as she placed the stool next to them and sat down. Nate moaned sleepily in concurrence with her. “... not talking 'bout you, Blue, but you're cute too, I guess.” 

Nate chuckled and took one of Piper's hands in his as he gazed down at Miles' sleeping face. “Guess I've got big competition nowadays, hm?”

“You could say that... but don't worry, you can't win.” She traced the dark circles under Nate's eyes with her free hand.

Nate bit his lip, “You ever look at him and just feel so humbled that we created him... like, together? We made something really good, doll.”

Piper's chest swelled with pride as she ran her hand through her son's soft black hair, “Yeah, I'm totally crazy about him.” She glanced at Nate's face quickly, just as proud.

“You did so good...” 

Seven months had passed by so quickly that Piper barely had time to process it. Seven months and Nate had proclaimed one iteration or another of near disbelief that Miles was real and not just some achingly hyper-realistic hallucination, a make-believe simulation of his old life with a different woman and a different kid. When Piper was pregnant and he woke her up, sobbing and shaking, because he'd dreamed of an empty life in the Commonwealth without her, she had to hold back a laugh every time. “I'm here, Blue. Always. You make me whole. I'm not going anywhere, silly.” She just didn't realize that the utter madness and the night terrors had been a reality for him for so long. The trauma of war and bloodshed: of having your friends and family slaughtered in front of you by complete strangers and bombs. This man would do anything, anything, to keep her safe. She had forgotten. How could she have forgotten? She would lie awake with him holding her from behind, their hands intertwined over her ever-growing bump, wondering if those emotional scars of his would ever heal in time. Enter Halloween, 2289. Miles Wright II, born to Piper Wright and Nathaniel Thomas, named after Nate's favorite pre-war trumpeter and composer and in tribute to Piper's late father, Miles Wright Sr., taking the Wright family name, not Nate's as he wasn't comfortable passing on his surname and didn't miss any of the patriarchal values of the old world. In the beginning, they both had their fears and doubts but life, not just the future, after the arrival of Miles seemed to look a lot brighter to Piper and especially to Nate. Seven months and Piper loved it every damn time her Blue got excited and humbled by the little human being that wriggled in his arms... which happened to be all the time. If it was indeed a dream, their very survival and finding of each other an anomaly against all odds, she would make sure that it would never end. Damn her if it ever ended.

“Piper?”

“Hm?” She felt like she'd been inside her own head for too long.

“Can you take him? I really have to take a leak.”

Piper let out a hushed laugh as she was handed her sleeping boy and cradled him on her lap. Nate left the room and then appeared again with one hand on the doorway a second after disappearing down the hall, “I know you don't believe me but he looks more and more like you every day.”

“Thank god.” Piper uttered sarcastically, exhaustion in her tone, as she petted Miles' dark hair and the faint freckles that dotted his nose with her fingertips.

Nate showed off a toothy grin, “It's the eyes, I'm sure. I love you. I'll be right back.”

It was half true, though. While Miles had inherited his mother's complexion, hair color, freckles, and her eyes, it wasn't all of those features that made him look like Piper at all. Maybe it was the keen examiner in her that noticed the shape of his eyes, the curve in his top lip, the swoop of his eyebrows, the expressions and faces that he made-- all of those qualities were much more prominent and Nate-like in her eyes.

Nate returned with that same grin he had before, he'd thrown on a white t-shirt and a green bomber jacket. “Hey, why don't we sneak up onto the roof to watch the sun come up over the stadium with the little guy?”

As corny as his suggestion indeed sounded, Piper's interest was piqued, but she wasn't convinced just yet.

“Come on, baby, it's not a nuclear Spring without you. Besides, we have to get Nat up for school in an hour and I don't feel like sleeping.”

Looking in his direction, Piper noticed that the clock they'd set up and approximated read half past six. Why the heck not? Where had her impulse gone? They'd been talking too loud, Miles' brilliant hazel eyes fluttered open, and he was awake. Maybe the little guy would enjoy it? "As long as you don't give me that 'nuclear spring' line again, you cheeseball. Let's get a move on..." 

Once Nate was up and out of the hatch, Piper handed Miles, now wearing the little toque that Ellie had knit for him, up to his father before she ascended after them. Miles babbled to Nate while Piper dusted off her pants after the climb. It had been quite some time since Piper had been up there. The reporter recalled that the last time was when she emptied her guts into the rain gutter after her last smoke. It was shortly after Miles was born and she had found that she just couldn't smoke her beloved sticks without retching anymore. Nate chuckled remembering how she'd eagerly anticipated her first cigarette nine months after quitting cold turkey. He was betting that she would finish the whole pack in a day and wash it down with a glass of whiskey or a cold Gwinnett afterwards. Much to his amusement, she couldn't handle alcohol for a time after that either. Piper brushed a strand of her hair back from her face as she took in the perimeter of the stadium; the Upper Stands. She tried to spot the sets of stairs in the 200-level where she did most of her exercising and jogging. The wind hit the side of the roof again and Piper's hair went flapping into her face. Now, her dark brown locks fell just below her shoulders. She had forgotten how her old press cap kept her hair in place as she had passed it down to her sister when they first moved in with Nate the year before. Things really had changed. Miles was giggling in Nate's arms, not seeming to care about the wind, as Nate pointed to various sights and buildings down below: Publick Occurrences was “Mommy's work”, Power Noodles was “noodle cup place”, and Valentine Detective Agency was “Daddy's work”, or, “Uncle Nicky's place”. Piper turned in the opposite direction and noticed a gaping hole in the upper part of the Wall. She could see the brilliant orange skyline peeking through. Whatever happened to the wall, the debris must have toppled over to the outside of the city's perimeter. She folded her arms across her chest and reminisced of the days when she was in her late teens, and new to the city, and all she could seem to complain about was the fact that McDonough had ordered Abbott to patch a hole at the bottom of the wall with a bookcase. All things have their beginnings, no matter how strange, and then things started to change for the better and worse over the following years...

“Did you just notice that gap up there too, babe?” Nate moved up beside her and wrapped his free arm around her waist.

“No, well... yeah.” She sighed. “It's a nice view, though.”

“It is a nice view... of Cambridge's backside and the stinking river of raw sewage, yes.”

“I have to be honest, I feel like I'm having this awful case of _dee-ja_ , whatchamacallit?” Piper chuckled and covered her face with a hand in thought, trying to recall the name of some forgotten pre-war phenomena.

“Déjà vu? Tell me about it. I get it all the time.”

“Right! Maybe I should get back to work today...”

“Ms. Wright, with the great green jewel of the Commonwealth, Diamond City, gone full on anarchy with no successor to Mayor McDonough or official rule over a twenty month period, what the hell is the leading voice of integrity and justice going to do about it?” Nate joked.

Piper looked to her son, who seemed to be paying no attention to the lovely sunrise through the new gap in the wall but whom was nonetheless adorably tugging at his father's unruly beard. Then she looked to her lover, “I think that this was a good idea, Blue. We can worry about that later.”

“Yeah, I dunno, he might appreciate these things more when he's older. Maybe he, too, will give the future leader's of Diamond City hell to pay for letting the wall fall into disrepair. We're gonna be fine, babe.”

Piper shuddered at the last thing that Nate said. _We're gonna be fine._ It was almost as if that was what they both needed to hear at that exact moment. Piper smiled and leaned into Nate's side, truly the happiest she'd been in a long time as her own jitters had died away. “I wasn't really being sarcastic. This was a good idea, a super morning.”

“If a deathclaw climbs in through that hole, I guess we could finally give Nat a demonstration of the Fat Man? Should we go and bang on Abbott's door in a bit and get him to...” He cut himself short, his partner looked to be at peace for once. “It is a nice morning, Pipes.”

Piper was glad that she got out of bed early. She glanced up at both of her boys one last time and concurred, “I guess we could stay and enjoy it for a little while longer.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey I'm new to this website and this is my first Fallout story! Comments, ideas, prompts, and criticism are very much welcome! Thanks.


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